Heh, I remember in paramedic school, we were doing patient's assessments. I know that I am going to be tested using the National Registry format so I was going by that, and the paramedic instructor dinged me because I didn't attempt to give aspirin after the patient stated their chief complaint "chest pain". I said brought up Samter's triad, told him that I should at minimum at least ask the patient if they are allergic or have any sensitivity to aspirin prior to administering it. He disagreed with me saying I should always give aspirin. I also brought up that per the National Registry format, I need to wait until after the initial impression prior to providing any treatment unless it fixes immediate life threats, which he also disagreed.
Same instructor disagreed with me when I wanted to push calcium chloride IV in a patient who already had labs done K+ 6.9, z-folds / sine waves on the monitor, and was in pulseless not breathing. He wanted me to go through ACLS algorithm administering epinephrine, do chest compressions, and transport. He told me he did this on a real patient, and the patient survived.
His friend advised me not to push 150 mg Amiodarone IV over 10 minutes in a patient with ventricular tachycardia, not enough time for that. His friend also told me to give dopamine wide open and titrate based on how the patient tolerates it, not a time to calculate the drip rate or look it up in the charts that they provide us in the protocol booklets. He also told me "Welcome to street medicine".
So many bad memories in paramedic school. <_< Gotta make sure to keep my mouth shut during my internship. I'll do my best to mimic my preceptor, but I still kinda feel like I am struggle to pass. I actually did keep it shut during my clinicals, but still managed to get in trouble in other ways, ugh. Called in sick to clinicals, but somebody claimed they saw me at work that day, and my preceptor refused to believe me or look at my schedule showing that I called in sick to work too. Preceptor thought I wasn't very personable, that I'd be a great flight medic because most of patients would at least be vegetables and I probably wouldn't have to talk with them. :\ Only good thing she had to say about me was "clinically sound".
Which all of this reminds me... I hate seeing 911 units because after almost four years of being an EMT (three working in the field), I still can't get a 911 job. 911 EMTs get almost x2 the pay a IFT EMT makes here. I've studied so hard and put so much effort into this field, and it has definitely not paid off. Very dissatisfied. I want to blame others, blame the 911 companies, as the reason why I haven't gotten hired there, but it's likely me. I'm doing something wrong. Or I just tell people it's a lottery. I frequently feel like quitting and starting fresh with a different field, I feel like I need to give up this mistake sooner than later. I wasn't bad at programming before this. I still seem to remember some stuff. I stay cause I do like the subject, I feel like I know my stuff, and I do enjoy wearing a uniform, being in an ambulance, and I do like driving red lights and sirens (I know it's not safe, I know it doesn't save time, but to me, it's still fun... probably cause I do it only once in 1-2 weeks). I'm good at many things though. Just because I can play the piano does that mean I should be a pianist? No. I dunno.
